When In the Dark
by Isabella GL
Summary: It's a sizzling summer night of 1992 and Springfield is suddenly plunged in the dark. Stuck in the Towers, Holly and Roger will have no choice but to adress some demons of their own. My take on the big blackout, hope you like it. It's going to be a shorter one and then I'm going back to the sequel to "Things That Bind Us Together."
1. Fire and Ice cubes

One of my favorite storylines in GL was definitely Springfield's big blackout in July of '92. Holly had become closer to Roger in the beginning of the year, only to run away from him again when she realized the part he had played in Daniel St. John's death. She was now trying to rekindle her romance with Ross, unaware that he was giving into his passion for Blake for the first time that very night. As for Roger, he was still reeling over the fact that Hart had just left town and was starting to notice Jenna Bradshaw. Holly seemed to be the last thing on his mind, and as he said to Maureen when they were trapped in the staircase at the beginning of the blackout, he couldn't fathom why Holly could inspire such chivalry from all her exes. However, the look that he gave his ex-wife at the end of the night, before the lights came back on, for those of you who can remember, led us to believe that he might still care for her after all. I remember thinking that I would have wish the night had gone differently. Hence this story.

* * *

"_I need to talk to Michelle," Maureen said to Billy Lewis. _

_She and Roger had just broken out of the staircase in which they had been trapped since the beginning of the blackout and joined the rest of Nick McHenry and Mindy Lewis's wedding party at the top of the Towers. Well, not all of the party; many people were still trapped in different parts of the building or simply unaccounted for. Julie Camalletti and Dylan Lewis were stuck in an elevator, and so were Jenna Bradshaw, the jewel thief, and Michelle Bauer. Ed had disappeared along with Lillian Raines, and so had Blake and Ross Marler. As for Mindy, she was last seen fleeing her own wedding, her veil blowing in the wind. The heat was getting unbearable, threatening to send people over the edge._

_Hamp Speakes, Billy, Vanessa Chamberlain, Holly, Mallet and Harley Cooper had gathered around Maureen and Roger as soon as they entered the room and told them of the latest developments. Harley stopped Maureen before she could follow Billy, who was heading to see if he could free his son. "Wait a minute. She's in a different elevator."_

_Maureen turned to her inquisitively. "She's not with Julie and Dylan?"_

_Harley briefly glanced at her boyfriend Mallet and sighed. "No."_

_Roger stepped in. "But do you know what floor that elevator is stuck on?"_

"_Forty-eight," Mallet curtly replied._

_Roger ignored the detective's tone and addressed Maureen. "Ok. I can open the lock to that door to the stairwell if you'd like."_

"_Pretty good at breaking and entering, aren't you, Thorpe?" Mallet sneered._

_Maureen clutched at her purse in an effort to keep calm and turned to Mallet. "Please, let him try. I've got to talk to Michelle."_

"_Look, you just can't mention to her what we're trying to do, ok?" Mallet replied. _

"_Why not?"_

_Harley put a hand on her shoulder, making Maureen face her. "Well, Maureen, there is a small problem."_

"_It's about 5 foot 4 and has an English accent," Mallet added._

"_Who is in that elevator with my daughter?" Maureen cried, finally losing her temper._

"_Her name is Jenna Bradshaw. She's a…jewel thief," Harley explained, in a tone she hoped was reassuring._

"_Oh, no!" Maureen said, fighting back the tears._

"_But Maureen, they just happened to wind up in the same elevator," Mallet said._

"_Absolutely, there is no reason to believe that she will hurt Michelle at all," Harley added. "It's just that we think she has some stolen jewels on her and we don't want to give her an opportunity to get away from us."_

"_I don't believe this! I feel like I'm dreaming!"_

_Roger walked up to her and took her by the shoulders, a move that didn't go unnoticed by Holly, who was standing in the background. "Now, listen, they are right; there is no reason why this woman would hurt Michelle, but on the other hand, it's not wise to put anyone who's trapped on the defensive."_

"_Are you talking from experience?" Mallet couldn't help but ask arrogantly._

_Roger stared at the cop but kept silent. Maureen ran a hand through her hair, panicked. "I just wish I knew where Ed was." _

"_It's going to be alright," Roger assured her before leaving with Harley and Mallet. _

* * *

Roger made good on his promise to Maureen and half an hour later, Michelle was safely back into her mother's arms. As for Jenna, she was apprehended by Harley and Mallet as soon as she stepped out of the elevator, under Roger's intrigued gaze. He stayed behind, wiping the sweat on his forehead as they all left the stairwell to go back to the restaurant on the fiftieth floor. He leaned on the wall, enjoying a moment of peace in the dark before going back to the chaos upstairs. He felt proud of himself; at least one thing had gone right tonight, he thought.

"Here, take this," he heard a voice say behind his back. He turned to face the entrance of the stairwell, surprised to find Holly standing in the doorway, holding a towel filled with ice cubes.

He took the towel and pressed it against his neck, letting out a sigh of pleasure. "I didn't see you come in," he finally said.

"I followed you guys, but I stayed out of your way. I just couldn't stand to stay upstairs and do nothing anymore; it was driving me crazy," Holly said, picking up the front of her satin black dress and pulled it away from her body in a vain attempt to cool herself.

Seeing this, Roger handed her back the towel so that she could run it against her own skin. She was about to walk up to him to pick it up when she tripped on something lying on the floor. She would have felt flat on her face if Roger had not been there to catch her. He soon threw her aside, however, and lunged to the door of the stairwell, which violently shut two inches from his nose.

"Damn!" he said, grabbing his hair with both hands and kicking the door. He then leaned down and picked the object on which Holly had just tripped, putting it back in his pocket.

"That was my wallet you just kicked out of the way," he said, trying not to sound too accusing.

She squinted at him before making for the door. "Why are you looking at me this way? It's not my fault if you can't bother to pick up your trash," she said, trying the doorknob.

"That trash was holding the door open," Roger said, going back to sit on the stairs.

Holly shook the doorknob harder, still refusing to let the situation sink in. Roger waited for the penny to drop, fanning himself with his wallet. Finally, Holly stopped trying and leaned against the door.

"We're stuck?"

"Yep."

"I thought you had picked this lock open!"

"I had, but now that the door is shut, I have to do it all over again, and I can't do that unless you have a hairpin or some other object of the same shape that I could use," Roger replied, eyeing his ex-wife from head to toe. Her hair was loose and she had no purse. Holly let herself slide down the door until she sat on the floor.

"We're stuck," she repeated, and this time, it was not a question.


	2. Keep Talking

"How long will we have to stay here?" Holly asked a few minutes later. They had been sitting in silence, barely able to make out the other in the faint light of the emergency generator.

"Until the power comes back on. Are you scared?"

Holly shrugged and shifted to find a more comfortable position on the concrete floor. "Not scared, just bored."

Roger let out a little laugh. He had to hand it to Holly; she was not one to panic easily, a trait he had always admired in her.

She eyed him thoughtfully before adding: "And I'm not scared of you either, if that's what you meant."

"I was talking about the blackout, but it's good to know." He was indeed relieved to discover that the thought of being shut away with him in such close quarters was not a problem for her anymore.

"I figured that if you would have wanted to force yourself on me again, you would have done it last year when we got stuck in the editing room at WSPR. I've stopped being afraid then."

Roger winced at her words, as he always did when she referred to the rape which had happened fifteen years ago.

"I thought I had succeeded in taking that fear out of you that much earlier, in Acapulco in fact."

Holly picked up the towel and pressed it on her forehead. The ice was almost gone, but the cloth was still cool. "Acapulco was the first step, yes, but it's a process. It takes time to build back trust," she replied after a while.

"Do you trust me now?" Roger could not help but ask, half-dreading the answer.

Holly smirked. "I trust you not to hurt me physically, but I wouldn't put anything else past you."

Roger grinned. Holly was the only woman who was able to stick it to him while still making him laugh. "Better than nothing I guess. Someday, I might be able to make you see me differently."

"I am sure that you have bigger fishes to fry than winning my approval back, Roger. On what sordid master plan have you been working lately?"

Roger frowned, vaguely ashamed. She had struck a nerve. The truth was that he had just helped Alexandra Spaulding break her son and Mindy Lewis up. He was not proud of it, because he was still fond of Mindy, but he had done it to get his hands back on his son's land. In the end, however, it had all been for nothing, as Hart had left town without bothering to leave a following address. He would rather be caught dead than to admit his part in tonight's fiasco to Holly, however, so in the end he ignored her question and simply replied: "I do think about you, Holly, even when we don't see each other regularly. Whether you believe me or not, I want you to be happy."

Holly looked at him with an inscrutable stare. "My, it sure is a deep conversation for a stairwell," she finally said dryly.

Roger sighed and rubbed his neck. He had expected this kind of answer from her; each time he tried to show her some concern, she shielded from his attempts with sarcasm, or worse, she ran to Ed or Ross. In fact, he was still smarting from her last rejection from a few months before, when he had laid his love at her feet after Daniel's death. She had been so close to let him back into her heart then, and yet she had ended up pushing him away once again. Since then, it seemed to him that she and Ross had become inseparable; a thought which made his insides churn every time he allowed himself to ponder over it. So, in an effort to move on, he had buried his feelings as deeply as he could yet again, so deeply in fact, that most of the time he could manage to forget they even existed. Let Ross have her; what did he care?

It was only at times like tonight, when she was so close that he couldn't help but catch the scent of her perfume and plunge his gaze into her golden brown eyes, that something stirred inside of him.

"Roger?"

Lost in his thoughts, he had not realized that Holly had been talking to him. "I'm sorry, what?"

Holly sighed and repeated her question. "I was asking if you had any idea where Hart might have gone. You told me earlier that he had left town, didn't you?"

Roger got up and started pacing in the cramped space, stepping over Holly's legs. So much for lighter conversation, he thought. "I don't know where he went, but I sure as hell will find out as soon as I'm out of here."

Hearing the distress in her ex-husband's voice softened Holly. If nothing else, his love for his children was his one redeeming quality, the one thing which made her certain that Roger was capable of true and pure love after all. The thought endeared her but also troubled her, because it was much safer for her heart to pretend that he had no real love to give anybody, especially her. Years ago, she had decided that no one would ever hurt her like Roger had done, and she was determined to keep her own promise, whatever the cost. Having him so near made it that much harder, however.

She got up and put a hand on his shoulder before she could stop herself. "You can tell me to go to hell if you want, but shouldn't you give him a little space instead of going after him? He needs to unwind; he just learned that you were the one who had stripped his grandfather of his land!"

"I didn't know that he was my son at the time, or else I never would have done it!" Roger said, stopping in his tracks at the light touch of her hand, but unable to face her. The lump in his throat threatened to burst any second and he couldn't bring himself to cry in front of her, even if deep down he knew that it wouldn't have belittled him in her eyes, quite the contrary.

"I think that what really hurt him is the fact that you would do it to anyone at all," Holly said softly but gravely.

Roger automatically tried to justify himself. "I did nothing illegal."

"Oh, Roger! This is me you're talking to. Maybe you didn't break the law, but you tricked Hart's grandfather into selling you this land and you know it. Stop pretending otherwise."

"And that makes me a monster, right?" Roger said cynically, taking a few steps away from her.

"I didn't say that. I just wish that you would own up to your mistakes for once. Maybe then you'd stop making so many of them, and stop hurting the people that you say you love."

Roger shook his head and finally turned to face her. She was looking at him earnestly, all traces of sarcasm gone. "What do you care what I do?" He finally said.

Holly reddened slightly, but Roger could not see it in the half-light. "I care because you are the father of my child, and I want you to be good to her. And believe it or not, I'd rather you be happy than unhappy," she replied, a smile appearing on the corner of her lips. Roger grinned in spite of himself. "To what do I owe this sudden show of concern?"

She cocked her head on one side and glanced at him. "Must be the heat getting to my head."

Roger looked down at his shirt, which was starting to cling to his chest. "It is getting pretty stuffed in here." He hesitated and then said: "Now that we've established that you're in no danger from me, would you mind terribly if I took my shirt off? I've wanted to do this since the last two hours, but I was with Maureen, then with all these other people…"

He looked at her pleadingly, his voice trailing off.

"What are you saying, Roger? That, contrary to everyone else, I don't deserve the simple courtesy of you staying dressed?"

"Oh, come on Holly! I am literally frying here. You have no idea how hot it is in a suit; you're wearing next to nothing!"

Holly raised an eyebrow.

"I mean your dress looks very light, and you have these fettuccini straps, or whatever ridiculous name you women call them."

"It's called spaghetti straps, and don't pretend that you didn't know. I bet you've become more than well acquainted with every piece of women's attire over the years. You can unbutton your shirt if you want, but I draw the line at that," Holly said, getting back to the stairs and sitting down. The hardness of the floor made her grumble under her breath.

Roger looked at her while opening his shirt and fanning himself with the sides. "You could sit on my shirt if you wanted, it would be more comfortable. Then we'd both be happy."

"Fine, take it off!" Holly said, apparently exasperated. "For the record, happiness is not sitting on your shirt in a staircase. Happiness is a cold shower, with you gone," she snapped.

"Whatever," he said, handing her his shirt and turning away from her. As she took a hold of it, the subtle scent of Roger's aftershave made its way to her nose, catching her by surprise. She looked up and stole a glimpse at his toned back, which glistened in the dark.

Feeling her eyes on him, Roger looked over his shoulder before she could look away. Their gaze locked for a few seconds, and tension suddenly filled the room. Roger thought about asking for his shirt back, but decided against it; it would be like putting a spotlight on their mutual attraction. Besides, this shift in the atmosphere was maybe all in his head, he concluded. In the end, he retreated in the far corner of the staircase and sat on the floor, bringing his knees up against his chest.

The two of them fell silent, each battling with their own thoughts, not daring to put a name on them.


	3. Hand me the towel, will you?

« Roger, are you in there? » a woman asked worriedly on the other side of the door some time later.

Holly rolled her eyes as she recognized Maureen's voice, but stayed silent.

Roger got up and went to the door. "Yes, I'm here. I got stuck again after you left, but I'm ok."

"How did that happen?"

Roger glanced at his ex-wife, who simply shrugged. "It's a long story. Holly is here with me."

There was a long silence outside before Maureen talked again. "Of course."

Holly took off one of her shoe and pretended to throw it at the door. "What's THAT supposed to mean?" she mouthed to Roger, furious, which he found extremely amusing. She managed to keep a civil tone, however, when she greeted Maureen aloud.

"When I didn't see you come back, I got worried that something might have happened to you, Roger. Let me just get the others and see if we can break that door opened," Maureen said.

"Thanks, but I don't think that it will be necessary. I doubt that anyone in there knows how to pick a lock, and I won't risk them screwing up the door permanently, because then who knows how long we might get stuck in here?"

"I bet Harley knows how to pick a lock," Holly said offhandedly. "Why don't you go get her, Maureen?" she added, looking at Roger defiantly.

"She's trying to get Dylan and Julie out of an elevator; Dylan is apparently extremely claustrophobic, so it's urgent that they get him out of there. I'll tell her to come as soon as she can, but it might take some time I'm afraid."

Holly kicked off her other shoe and leaned on both elbows on the stairs, stretching her legs. "Don't worry, we're not going anywhere."

"At least we know where you are, now. I guess I'll just leave you two to...whatever," Maureen said on the other side of the door.

"Thanks for checking up on us," Roger replied.

"No problem." They heard her footsteps going away, and then it was complete silence once again.

"Well, she was not checking up on me; that's for sure. She was checking up on YOU," Holly finally said.

"Jealous much?" Roger asked, sitting back down.

Holly ran a hand through her hair. "What's the point? I could never compete with the perfect Maureen Bauer anyway," she said, suddenly sounding weary.

Roger looked at her pensively, and then let out a small laugh. "You know what's funny? I think that, in a way, Maureen is to you what Ed is to me."

"Please. Everyone knows that there is no love lost between Maureen and me, but I wouldn't call her my archenemy either."

"I don't mean it like that. I mean that she personifies the woman that you think that you should aim to be like, but that you can never be like, because it's not in your intrinsic nature."

"Geez, thanks for reminding that I can never be as patient, as good and as loving as she is," Holly snapped, offended.

Roger laughed again, this time out loud. "Oh, come on! You're twisting my words! Anyway, you get my point, don't you? It can be very tiresome to always be compared to one person, and to always feel that you're falling short."

"I don't want you to be like Ed, and I never wanted you to be, if that's what you're referring to."

Roger grinned. "There was a time when you did, Holly, don't you try to deny it. But it doesn't matter now, I've stop torturing myself about that a long time ago. Ed might be a saint in everyone else's eyes, but not in mine. I did my fair share of mistakes, it's true, but so as he. I'm just not as good as being forgiven as he is, that's all."

"Jealous much?" Holly said sarcastically.

"Well, it can be infuriating, yes."

"No offense, but I don't think that Ed's mistakes and yours are of the same magnitude. You did some epic blunders, Roger: embezzling money from Spaulding, cheating on your wife with your rival's daughter, not to mention all that you ever did to me. Ed is not perfect, it's true, but I think that he always acted in good faith. He never deliberately did something that he knew might hurt the people he was close to."

"Oh yeah? What about his drinking? But, hey, that's exactly what I mean, people just forget about his past, but they won't let me forget mine."

He looked down gloomily, as if disgusted with the whole conversation. As always when he became truly dejected, Holly felt compelled to reach out to him. She got up from the stairs and went to kneel in front of him. "Hey, look on the bright side. You did some monumental mistakes, but you also had spectacular, much more dazzling successes than Ed could ever hope for."

Roger looked up at her, trying to see in the darkness if she really meant it. "I did accomplish some pretty big things, didn't I?" he said softly.

"You did," she said, returning his smile. "I wonder thought if that's what you really want out of life, all this power and all this money that you're always running after. Does it really make you happy?"

"Ah! The crucial question. If I do envy Ed, it's because he has a real home, a wife who loves him and children that he feels close to. I wish I had that; that's all that really matters to me in the end."

"Maybe you could have it, if you stopped plotting for it all the time. Blake adores you, and in time Hart might come around too."

"Then all I would need would be a good woman by my side," he said, half-jokingly, staring into her eyes.

"You mean like Maureen Bauer?" Holly said, flushed in spite of herself.

"Ah! I'm afraid it would never work between Maureen and I. Make no mistake, I found her very attractive in her own sweet way, but I need someone that's..."

"That's what?" Holly asked, waiting breathlessly for the answer.

"Oh, I don't know, just someone who's different from her, I guess. Less perfect, maybe," he concluded, unwilling to say what was really on his mind. Holly looked away and Roger thought he could see a glimpse of disappointment in her eyes.

"You know, Maureen is probably the only person in this town who's convinced that I can really turn my life around. She thinks that I'm a good person, and for that she is very dear to me. However, I don't think that she really knows me, and I need to be with someone who truly knows me, with all my flaws. Do you understand?" he asked, taking one of her hands and pressing it in his.

"Yes, I think I do," Holly said in a soft voice.

"Do you think that maybe, someday, I could be with such a woman?"

Holly's hand jerked away from his, as if it had a mind of its own. "You're asking the wrong person, Roger. I've always been lousy at predicting the future."

Roger sighed. Holly certainly was the world champion when it came to running hot and cold. He would try to get closer to her, she would respond, and then he would somehow cross a certain line which made her take flight, like a frightened bird. The problem was that he could never learn where that line was, and how to cross it while making her stay.

He got up, trying to shake the numbness from his legs, and winced as he did so.

"What is it?"

"Nothing, it's just so damn hot in here," he said grumpily.

"Take the towel. The ice is gone, but at least it's still wet."

He took it from her and rubbed it against his face, his neck and his arms. He then tried to reach his back but dropped it in the process, shaking his left wrist in pain.

Holly got up and went to him, picking the towel from the floor. "There IS something the matter with you. What happened?" she inquired.

"I twisted something in my arm when we rescued Michelle. It's just a little strain, that's all."

"Here, let me help you then," she said, making him turn around. Roger let out a sigh when he felt water trickling down his back and put a hand on the opposite wall not to lose his balance.

"How does that feel?" He heard her ask behind him as she continued to run the towel across his bare back.

"Good," he managed to say in a casual voice, controlling his breathing as best as he could. Painfully good, he fought the urge to add. You're driving me mad and you know it, and yet you still torture me every chance that you get, you witch. He stayed silent, however, because he knew that speaking his mind would only make her mad or go away and stop. And he couldn't bear her to stop, not just yet.

She did stop after a few minutes, dropping the towel back on the bottom step. "I think we wrung everything that we could out of this poor little cloth," she said.

"What about you? Aren't you hot?" Roger asked, turning back to her.

She was standing under the faint light, picking up a strap that had fallen off her shoulder. "I don't know. Maybe I'm better at standing the heat than you are after all."

..


	4. The light will shine in the end

« I hope Blake made it home okay," Holly said aloud later. They had been stuck for more than an hour now, and the heat was starting to make them feel drowsy. They both privately wondered if they would have to spend the night in the stairwell, a prospect which they welcomed with a mixture of wariness and excitement.

"Blake is a big girl; I'm sure she's alright."

"I don't know. She was pretty upset about Alan-Michael when I last saw her. She's still after him, you know? And she was also upset with you. She thinks that you love Hart more than you love her."

Roger shook his head. "I know, and I apologized to her earlier for making her feel this way. Nothing could be farther from the truth. She's my first born, my girl; she's irreplaceable to me."

"Oh yeah, Daddy's little girl," Holly commented, but for once, it was not disparagingly.

"You two seem to be getting along better these days."

"We're both trying. I don't want to give up on her, but sometimes she makes it so hard for me to get close to her. Never mind, you wouldn't know what it's like," Holly could not help but complain.

"Oh, I think I would. I bet she gets it from the Norris side," Roger said.

Holly opened her mouth to protest then closed it again, understanding what he truly meant. She looked down to hide her troubled eyes.

"So, what are you going to do when we get out of here?" Roger asked, sensing that he should change the subject. "You're going to run to Ross and complain that you had to spend the evening with the big bad wolf?" he added, unable to keep the edge from his voice.

"Ross and I don't talk about you."

"I find that extremely hard to believe," Roger replied, sneering.

"Would it be too much to ask of you to just stop, for one second, to mock my choices? To stop making fun of the people I choose to have in my life?" Holly snapped, getting incensed.

"So you ARE seeing him again. I wondered about that," Roger said, keeping his tone neutral, while inside something, his heart maybe, seemed to crumble.

"I'm not, at least not yet, but I would like that, to be perfectly honest. Ross is a good man, and after the way it ended between us, can you really blame me for wanting to know if it might work again?"

"You still blame me for your breakup," Roger said, not asking.

Holly sighed. "I blame myself for the way I handled things back then in Acapulco. Ross values honesty above everything else, and I failed him."

Roger whistled, impressed. "You're certainly being honest now."

"It's called growing up. You should try it," Holly retorted.

"Touché. I won't meddle in your love affairs, I promise, but could I just offer a piece of advice?"

"Go ahead; I'm sure it will be entertaining."

"Why go back to good old Ross? Why not just really move on and start fresh with someone new?"

Holly snorted with contempt. "I did, with Daniel, and it didn't exactly pan out, remember? Besides, you're the one to talk. Wasn't it just a few months ago that you were professing your love to me, asking me to come back to you and to marry you? That's not exactly my idea of a fresh start, you know."

"That's different."

"How?"

"Because I'm your soul mate," he stated simply.

For once in her life, Holly could think of nothing to retort. She just stared at Roger, her mouth slightly opened, letting the words sink in. Sure, he had told her before that he loved her, but he had never said it like that, never with such certainty. Roger got up, taking a few steps in her direction, while she stood with her back against the wall.

"You know how it's been between us these last few years. We've being stepping in and out of the light, always taunting and tempting each other, never able to really let go. We've been circling around the truth, but it's right here, Holly, right here between us."

"What truth?" she whispered breathlessly.

"I think you know," he said, closing the distance between them and taking her in his arms. He stopped for a split second, waiting, almost expecting her to push him away, but when she didn't, he leaned over her and kissed her softly. "Oh, Holly," he said, burying his face in her hair while she slipped her arms around his neck, too dizzy to even speak. They found each other's lips again and kissed, this time more urgently.

When their mouths finally parted again, they both gasped for air. Sweat was now running freely down their spines, making Holly's dress clinging tightly to her body. Roger slowly slid a strap off her right shoulder and brushed his lips against her throat, the tip of his tongue leaving a trail of goose bumps in its wake. "Should I stop?" he eventually forced himself to ask.

"I don't know, no. I don't know," Holly repeated, aware that she was becoming incoherent. When he reluctantly started to let her go, she pulled him back to her. "I can't stop," she whispered. Things gradually became more heated as Roger slowly undressed Holly, running his hands up her thighs and pulling her dress along with them. He was prevented from losing all control, however, by a nagging little voice in the back of his head, telling him that if he should ever make love to Holly again, it should not be in a staircase at Towers. And then, just as they were both about to throw all caution to the wind, the lights snapped back on, half-blinding them with their intensity.

Before they could realize it, they had pulled away from each other, blinking. The air-conditioning also kicked back on, sending down a chilling breeze. Holly hurriedly put her straps back on her shoulders and reached for the door, which opened easily under her shove. She was about to head out when Roger took her by the wrist and brought her gently back in the stairwell.

"What?" she asked in a business-like tone, as if the last ten minutes had never taken place.

"We were about to make love, and now all you can say is "what?" Roger said, not surprised exactly, but still upset by her volte-face.

Holly came close to him again and put a hand on his chest. "Call it a momentarily lapse of reason. I couldn't be with you six months ago, and I still can't now."

"Why?"

"Because it's all about trust, and the bottom line is, Roger, that I still don't trust you to make me happy. It's a matter of self-preservation," Holly explained, finally letting regret show through her eyes.

"So that's it? As soon as we walk out that door, I'm becoming _persona non grata_ to you once again?" Roger said, putting his shirt back and shaking his head.

"And you'll go back to your shenanigans and your women. Who's your next victim? Jenna Bradshaw? I've seen the way you've been looking at her lately, and before you ask, no, I'm not jealous much."

Roger raised an eyebrow, because the idea of luring Jenna into bed had indeed crossed his mind a few times in the last weeks. Reading him like an opened book, Holly let out a little smile. "You might have to set your sights on someone else if she's headed to jail. She seems to be bright enough to escape, thought, so maybe you might have met your match at last."

Roger ran a finger tenderly along Holly's jaw. "I think I have met my match, and it's not Jenna." He reluctantly let her go and held the door for her. "So, what happens in the staircase stays in the staircase?"

Holly smiled before leaving for the restaurant. "I couldn't have put it better."

Roger stayed behind, watching her go. "Well, there is always next time, Holly," he murmured. "As you said yourself, it's a process."

THE END (until next time).


End file.
